Bill would let cops fine phone-using jaywalkers up to $200

Put cameras on the front of MBTA buses and authorize bus drivers to issue civil infraction tickets to drivers who block bus stops. It would work like this: bus pulls up to stop, driver sees a car/truck, etc. blocking the stop, the driver presses a button, it takes a photo of the offending vehicle, and voila, a ticket is mailed to the registered owner.

I'm talking about drivers who are stopped before the intersection on the yellow, and then proceed through the light as it turns red, even though there's likely no space on the other side. Happens all the time at Museum Way.

if you can't pass through the entire intersection green or not.

Steady Yellow
A steady yellow light means the traffic signal is changing from green to red. You
must stop if it is safe. If you are already stopped at an intersection or a stop line, you may not proceed.

However, your explaination of yellow lights shows what kind bad driver you are.

Almost all local police in all Boston area cities and towns don't consider minor traffic infractions to be worth their time. On the rare cases they do a "sting" at any intersection they have no shortage of violators.

It's surprising as the amount the towns would earn from the tickets would cover the officer OT.

OK, let's plug those in! Sorry I misunderstood the number of infractions you see; it sounded like you usually saw at least one. Call it an average of 1 observed every other walk, then, and double it for total? Still one minute average per intersection. Total time walking is actually a bit of a red herring; I was just using that to extrapolate from my own walking (which goes along a larger road, I suspect.) I'll also throw in a factor of 0.2 to say that red-light running and overall traffic volume are higher during your rush-hour walks.

2 infractions/(5 intersections * 1 minute) * 1440 minutes/day * 1000 intersections * 0.2 = 2 / 5 * 1440 * 1000 * 0.2 = 115,200 infractions per day ($23M).

Still seems like a really high number of red-light runners, but I'm not sure where the give is in the numbers.

(I actually don't have a particular agenda here; I do see a lot of red-light runners, but I don't have a good sense of how frequently since my memory is pretty bad these days. I mostly notice the ones that nearly run me down as I cross.)

Traffic used to stop more often when someone had the walk signal. I am old enough to remember that used to be the norm. Now, because of the traffic density, (per my conversation with a representative from the City of Cambridge Transportation Department, after my accident) the priority is to keep the traffic moving. Ok, a compromise: How about when I press the walk signal, the traffic stops?

In regards to your last question, the majority of drivers stop for reds, so my answer is "yes". The driver that almost hit me was not running a red.

The only reason I was not hit (his truck's grill was inches from me) is that I have, it appears, quick reflexes. If I did not, I would of been hit. If I was pushing a baby carriage, we would of been hit. And after suffering for months with an very painful, rather large bruise on my upper thigh (and I was quite lucky), never mind the pain of throwing my body down on concrete (and getting soaked as it was during a rainstorm), I prefer a red light that holds the traffic when I cross in a crosswalk.